The Art of Hunting by Alan Campbell

look after me,’ she said.
    He grunted.
    Marquetta intervened. ‘You are, of course, welcome to leave whenever you choose,’ he said. ‘However, given your eh . . . Given the unusual circumstances of your situation,
don’t you think it would be prudent to remain under observation for a few more days? Until we know for sure.’
    ‘If I turn out to be a sword replicate,’ Granger said. ‘Then how does staying here help me? Can you reverse it?’
    Marquetta shrugged. ‘Unfortunately—’
    ‘That’s what I figured. Ianthe, get your things.’
    ‘I’m not going anywhere with you.’
    He bared his teeth. ‘Yes you damn well are.’
    ‘No, I’m not missing the ball just because you wake up and want to leave. We’ve been planning it for days now.’
    Granger shot a quizzical look at the prince.
    Marquetta explained. ‘We have organized a ball tonight as a gesture of peace and friendship with our neighbours. Every nobleman, official and landowner in Awl will attend. Will you not at
least stay until then?’
    A ball?
Mere weeks after the Haurstaf slaughter and the takeover of Awl’s military, and the Unmer were having
a ball
? Granger was about to protest when he saw the look of
fierce determination in Ianthe’s eye. It was almost a warning.
Don’t embarrass me
. But she was too young to understand the dangers of remaining here. She hadn’t seen the
corpse piles the Unmer had left in Dunbar and Dorell and a hundred other places before the dragon wars. She hadn’t been in that transmitting station in Pertica and seen the entropic horrors
Herian had summoned from god knows where. Whenever you stumbled upon one of the Unmer in some remote place, as Granger had done while following Ianthe to this palace, there was always trouble.
Herian had likely been in that war-ravaged station for centuries, working away like a weaver on the looms of fate, manipulating events for his otherworldly masters – those eternal god-like
creatures the Unmer called entropaths. Granger still didn’t know why the Unmer operator had manipulated events to bring him there, or what the entropaths wanted of him, but he suspected it
had everything to do with Ianthe. The Unmer were a dangerous, secretive race. His daughter was too trusting, too naive to deal with them. Hell, half the time Granger felt that he was too naive
himself. No. Even one more night here was too long.
    He was about to tell Marquetta just what he thought of his damned ball, when a second wave of dizziness overcame him. The room tilted and blurred before his eyes and he nearly toppled to the
floor.
    ‘Colonel Granger?’ Marquetta said. ‘Do you require assistance?’
    ‘I’m not a colonel,’ Granger said. ‘Not any more.’ His head was reeling so much he could barely see the others in the room now. Their three forms seemed to merge
into one and then separate. And for a horrible moment he thought he saw eight more figures. His sword replicates, standing at the back of the room. But then his vision returned to normal, and the
replicates – if they had ever been there – disappeared. Ianthe was looking at him anxiously. The duke had his eyebrows raised and wore a faintly questioning expression. And it seemed
that Marquetta’s smile evinced arrogance.
    ‘Stay one night at least,’ the young prince said. ‘Until these dizzy spells stop.’
    Granger could only nod.
    ‘Excellent.’ Marquetta smacked his hands together, denoting an end to the matter.
    Ianthe’s face was full of joy.
    A flash above the young prince’s shoulder caught Granger’s attention. It was the tiny silver sphere. It hung there in the air, bobbing slightly and emitting a crackling hum that
sounded disturbingly like a chuckle.
    ‘He seemed overly keen to be reunited with the sword,’ Paulus said, as they strolled along the corridor beyond Granger’s room. ‘Not a good sign, I
fear.’
    ‘You think he has succumbed to its will?’ Ianthe said.
    ‘I don’t know,’ the prince